


A Playlist for Relocating Your Best Friend

by hanschen



Category: Difficult People
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanschen/pseuds/hanschen
Summary: Julie relocated to Chicago to start a new life. She had a surprising amount of success, but since she lost touch with Billy, it hasn't felt worth it if there's no one to share it with.When Marilyn falls ill, Julie returns to New York City. She sets out to reconnect with Billy while navigating around nostalgia, hospice care, and a nervous breakdown, only to find that the biggest obstacle in reconnection is Billy himself.A story about using sincerity, love, and music only when you have no other tools left.





	A Playlist for Relocating Your Best Friend

_If you said goodbye to me tonight_   
_There would still be music left to write_   
_What else could I do_   
_I'm so inspired by you_   
_That hasn't happened for the longest time_

* * *

There are three things that Julie Kessler doesn’t go a full day without thinking about:

  1. The music video for Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.” Those male dancers were excellent for this particular task—wonderful dancers, somewhat straight-passing, and adept at pretending to be around Billy Joel’s height. Where were they now? And the driver of Christie Brinkley’s car—where was he, too?
  2. Billy Epstein.
  3. Why hadn’t cheese curds made their presence known in New York City?



There are lots of things she would like to think more about-- what she’ll do when her mother’s cancer worsens, Michael Cerveris performing “Finishing the Hat” from _Sunday in the Park with George_ , New York City in general-- but doesn’t like to make herself cry. All those things make her cry.

There was a period of time, between her third and sixth months in Chicago, that the second thing on the first list made her cry all the time.

When she first moved, any part of her first month that wasn’t spent looking for the best winter coat was spent talking to Billy. They texted about her new job as a coordinator at a comedy club and his new position as head waiter at the restaurant. They emailed links back and forth of Vulture’s needlessly huge rankings of movies and TV shows, eventually changing the subject to their own needlessly huge ranking (of Vulture’s most useless rankings). And even though without each other, they had both become anxious enough to hate talking on the phone, they would call each other, only each other, and talk until the wee hours of the morning.

But in the second month, when Julie finally started unpacking after the realization that this move might have been good for her and the job might just stick, it didn’t take her any time at all. She figured out this was because she had hours free—Billy wasn’t calling and emailing as much as the first month, and sometimes he would go for a couple days without responding to a text.

By the time the third month rolled around, she had to go back to New York City to visit a very forlorn Arthur, lost without her in the city he stayed behind in. Long distance wasn’t working for either of them, and when they went out to a diner, she started crying over her disco fries. He asked what was wrong, and she said they needed to break up, then left some cash on the table and walked straight out of the diner, into an Uber, and to LaGuardia airport to go back to Chicago.

Arthur would later text her that he was flattered when she cried into the gravy and cheese, not expecting her to have any emotion about ending their relationship. She never had the heart to tell him that though she did miss Arthur dearly, that wasn’t why she cried. She cried because he had just asked how Billy was doing, and she couldn’t get the words out, because they hurt her feelings too much—when she told him she was coming back to visit, he never responded at all.

Most of her fourth month was spent fielding those late night texts from Arthur, most of them begging her to come back. In her fifth month, Marilyn was diagnosed with breast cancer, and when Julie asked if she could visit, Marilyn responding by asking what good that could possibly do. So there was a lot of crying in both those months.

In her sixth month, she was able to reject Louis C.K. from coming to the club, and she wrote and published a series of think pieces on the difference between comedy in the Midwest and Northeast for Slate, the comedy section of which was the most positive she ever had. She would cry the hardest in this month when she realized she had success for the first time, and nobody to share it with.

In her seventh month, another personal essay she wrote got such rave reviews that fans in the comment section were clamoring for her to be instated as a regular writer and for her recaps to get more of a spotlight. This essay was about how devastating it was for a sassy straight woman to be ghosted by her gay bestie, far worse than any romantic breakup she’d ever had. When Julie submitted the essay, she thought it was whiny, pedantic, meandering—to the point that she wouldn’t have submitted it at all if she didn’t think it might be a worthy last-ditch attempt to get Billy’s attention again. But if he read it, he didn’t reach out.

In her eighth month, she got a raise at work after writeup in a local paper as a “herald of the edgiest voices in Chicago comedy.” This should have made her happy, but instead, she kept having to google the definition of herald, unable to remember it even after her third visit to Dictionary.com.

And finally, nine months into her new life in Chicago, Julie was getting close to ten months, thankful for a relatively drama-free ninth month. She had accepted that though this was not the success she envisioned (i.e., she was successful ALONE), and that it was time to be happy with Chicago life-- swapping out deep dish for dollar slices, tours of Broadway tourist traps instead of the real thing. She even had plans to go out after work for drinks with her new gay friend, some bleached blonde idiot named Benjamin who did box office at the club. He really was much dumber than her, but he loved trying to make her laugh, and he hated Andrew Lloyd Weber, so she decided he would do for now.

Then her mother, who had thus far given Julie no relevant information on how treatment was going other than a request to proofread a manuscript titled _My Friend Chemotherapy: Marilyn Kessler’s Unabashed and Admirable Victory Against Cancer_ , called to let Julie know the cancer had metastasized too severely, and she would be entering hospice care the following week, and Julie needed to come to get her apartment put on the market. Marilyn made this call to Julie while she was at work: “I know that you work at night. That’s why I’m calling now. I don’t want you to have some sort of breakdown over this, and I know you won’t have one in public.”

Julie kept it together, getting that familiar forehead-centralized headache from not-crying, unable to enjoy whatever new feminist standup she had thrown onto the stage. By the time she boarded the red line train that night, the headache had progressed into numbness, and she felt she wouldn’t be able to cry even if she cried.

She got into her apartment that night, paying little mind to Greg and Senator Jellybeans, and went straight to her laptop. Still numb, she started browsing flights on Delta (the only airline she liked— they had on-demand TV, and what better way to fly than to take a Xanax and fall asleep to the dulcet tones of _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ season four?). She absentmindedly clicked over to Facebook; frequently in late hours, she went to Billy’s profile. About a month and a half ago, she noticed he changed his relationship status to Single, and deleted Todd as a friend. She messaged him, knowing he wouldn’t respond, and that it would just be one in a long series of blue bubbles pathetically begging for his attention (they hadn’t even been marked as Read since month five in Chicago).

But his profile wasn’t there.

At first, she thought he deleted her, but when she went into the search bar, his name didn’t come up. No Billy Epstein, no Bill Epstein. No Will/Willy/William Epstein. No Billy Larroquette.

Not only had he deleted her, but he blocked her from searching for him.

She booked her flight for the next day, and begun a crying jag that turned into an all-nighter. She was able to see through the tears enough to send an email to her job explaining the sudden need for absence and declining to let Aziz Ansari through while she was gone. She also ate two Trader Joe’s lava cakes, watched most of an entire season of _Kitchen Nightmares,_ and in the weakest moment of all, called Arthur.

He offered to pick her up from the airport, put her up on his couch, cook for her, and rent out the movie _Burlesque_ with Cher so he could bask in the presence of her skewering it for fun. She accepted only the first offer. Then, by the time she hung up with him and booked an Airbnb for the week, it was time to head to the Midway airport.

Which brings us to Julie now, sitting in Midway Concourse B at seven a.m., past security after forty minutes in line, staring into space with her feet resting on her Missoni carry-on , a diluted Au Bon Pain iced coffee in her hand. She hadn’t responded to outside stimuli for half an hour.

She heard the first round of boarding for her flight to JFK. Still, she didn’t make any move to get up. She considered just missing the flight and going back home to sleep, then showing up for work that night. She also considered reaching her foot out and tripping the grandpa walking in front of her as he chased his pigtailed granddaughter, the two of them giggling all the way. She’d say nothing to them except some zinger like, _Life comes at you fast, don’t it?_ Before she either boarded her flight or was detained by security. Lastly, she considered dumping the iced coffee over head first, for no reason other than that would make a good personal essay about a breakdown. At no point did she consider getting up and heading towards the gate.

A lanky man with gray hair stopped just in front of her. He bent down to peer into her face.

It occurred to Julie that she might look dead, having foregone makeup that day. “I’m not dead. I’m just a little bit traumatized. Don’t mind me. I’ll be up in a jiffy.”

He didn’t move.

“Be on your way, sir. There’s an Auntie Anne’s a few feet away if you need motivation.”

He shook his head, as if awaking from a fog. “God, I’m sorry. That’s one of the rudest things I’ve ever done. I just recognize you from somewhere… you don’t happen to write for Slate, do you?”

A fan? In person, and not just in her Instagram DMs? Why did it have to happen when she wasn’t wearing eyeliner? “I can’t believe you recognize me. Are you like, a headshot connoisseur?”

He tilted back his head to laugh. When he straightened up, she realized he had a lovely, lanky body and a nice natural posture. “I have read your piece about losing your gay best friend out loud to anyone who will indulge me.”

“It’s nice to know gay men like it, too. Not just white girls who would have secretly preferred Lena Dunham write it.” He chuckled at this too, but she quickly followed up with, “Sorry to assume anything about your sexuality.”

“What gave it away? The old-man dancer body, or the old-man dancer persona?”

Of course he was a dancer. His feet were in fifth position, and actually looked comfortable that way. He also seemed very familiar to her. “Do I know you somehow?” she asked, meaning instead, _Are you a hallucination from lack of sleep?_

“Maybe… I did a bit of dancing and acting back in the day. Retired pretty early, though. Bad knees, bad hips.”

She stared into his eyes. They were big, expressive, and they made her think of pianos. Why? Pianos… Piano Man… Billy Joel… “Holy shit. Were you in the music video for ‘Uptown Girl’?”

His eyes lit up. “Julie, you’re making my day. I didn’t think anyone younger than me even knew that song, let alone the video.”

“Are you kidding? I watch it all the time! It’s like a lullaby. And you’re one of the tall ones who holds a tool and helps Billy Joel get his model girlfriend!”

“That’s me!”

A couple more announcements had passed, and now Julie’s boarding group was called. She sprang up. Drops of condensation from her iced coffee’s plastic cup went flying. “By any chance, are you on this flight to New York?”

“Oh no… sorry, Julie. I’m headed to West Palm. My husband’s over there with our bags. We’re going on vacation. I’m excited, but too bad I won’t get to fly with you.” He did look sincerely regretful. Julie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a sincere emotion (beyond exhaustion) on someone’s face in an airport.

“What’s your name?”

“John.”

“John, believe me when I say this… I’m bummed we won’t get to fly together. And I’ve never said that in my life. Usually on a flight I want to be in a cocoon of overpriced airplane vodka and bad wi-fi signals.”

“I feel the same, Julie. I usually prefer a book. Or staring at the seat in front of me. Anything other than talking to whatever poor schmuck accepts the middle seat.” Now it was Julie’s turn to laugh, and he looked happy, suddenly resembling the happy running grandfather from five minutes ago. “What’s motivating you to head to New York?”

“My mom is sick. That’s mostly the reason.”

“I’m so sorry. I wish you and her the best of luck.”

“You know what? It’s actually okay,” she said as she reached out to shake his hand. He grinned and shook it with enthusiasm as she said one more thing before joining the line at her gate. “I think I just got the first sign for a while that I made the right decision.” And as she waited to get her boarding pass scanned, she decided maybe it was time to give the thinkpieces a break for a while, if that was how she was going to be ending her conversations.

* * *

_“Did you guys want to maybe put those in coat check?” asked the hapless waiter. His annoying modernized version of a Flock of Seagulls haircut tilted downwards as he looked at the bags under their table. Their was a large plastic reusable Trader Joe’s bag (“borrowed” from Arthur) at Julie’s feet, and a Strand tote at Billy’s._

_“I don’t know, do you WANT TO MAYBE ask that with less passive-aggression?” Julie responded._

_“Oh no, I didn’t mean that. I just thought. Perhaps. They were in the way?”_

_“It’s fine,” Billy said, then to Julie in a stage whisper, “He WANTS TO MAYBE earn at least fifteen percent tonight.”_

_“Got it,” she nodded. They smirked and opened their menus in perfect unison. She said to the waiter, “Did you WANT TO MAYBE take our order?”_

_“Of course. Whenever you’d like.”_

_“I’ll take two of the burrata appetizer, on one plate, all scooped together like an entrée.”_

_Billy said, “I’ll have the filet mignon. And because you didn’t ask for drinks yet, a gin and tonic. If you WANTED TO MAYBE take it.”_

_Julie waved him away. “He WANTS TO MAYBE do it quick.”_

_The waiter scurried away, dragging his pride behind himself on the shiny tile floor. As soon as they were done staring at his back, Julie and Billy lifted up their bags at the same time on to the table, not caring about the THUNK noises they made that vibrated their water glasses and made the table next to them turn to look._

_“The Julie and Billy Parting Gift Ceremony officially begins,” she reached inside her bag._

_“Wait wait I want to do mine first!”_

_“But my first gift is kind of stupid and I don’t even know if you can accommodate it.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Well, just… let me show you.” Billy sat back in his seat, wide open eyes on her bag. She took a moment to appreciate this simple act of obedience—she couldn’t imagine Billy acquiescing anyone else demanding they just “show him something” unless they were maybe Ryan Murphy in the restroom of any given East Village bar. And so she felt more pressure than ever for her gift to be worth something. It was a gift she used to give all the time, but not since college, when it stopped being cool to do it and started being hipster, and she ran out of boyfriends who would have anything to do with it. She had given Arthur a mix C.D. once, and he said something like, “I simply love it, pad thai! I can’t wait to play it on the company disc drive when I get to work.” She never followed up._

_“Oh my god…” Billy held the plastic jewel case in his hands like a bible (or like someone who wasn’t Billy Epstein would hold a bible, that is). “I haven’t had one of these since… ever. No one’s ever made me a mix C.D.”_

_“No one has EVER?” Julie could have hurled the rest of her gifts across the room of the latest trendy Italian-Whatever fusion restaurant that she got them a reservation at by pretending to be Christina Hendricks’ sister. “Well, let me call up Todd and tell him to get on his ass and buy a laptop that can burn C.D.s for you! God knows he has enough money.”_

_Billy grinned. “God knows he does.” He reached into the breast pocket of his button-down and flashed a hundred dollar bill her way. “He sent this along as your going-away present.”_

_“I love that man almost as much as you do.”_

_“Can I tell you how our discussion went about you leaving?”_

_“You DISCUSSED it? You mean he was interested in me and my plans for more than one sentence?”_

_“When I first told him about your plans to move to Chicago, I started to cry. I took a moment to collect myself—you know I love a dramatic ‘head in hands’ moment—”_

_“I KNOW you do and you’ve perfected it.”_

_“And when I looked up, he was tearing up too. I asked him what was going on and he said this adorable thing about being in pain when I’m pain.”_

_“That’s disgusting! I love it!”_

_“And then he started crying for real, not just tears, and when he finally calmed the fuck down enough to talk, he said, ‘I’m just so happy… we’re sharing our first emotion together.’”_

_“Just because I’m moving doesn’t mean I don’t want to be the maid of honor.”_

_“You’re first on the list, you know that. Anyway, back to us. Let’s look at this track listing.” Billy opened up the jewel case and unfolded the slip of paper inside. “Track 1… Billy Joel, ‘For the Longest Time.’ Get out. I love that song.”_

_“You DO?”_

_“You don’t know I love Billy Joel?”_

_“No, I had no idea! And we’ve known each other for how many years?”_

_“Do you ever just casually watch the Uptown Girl video?”_

_“Only at least once a week since I was twenty-two.”_

_“Wow…” Billy stared off into space._

_“Penny for your thoughts?”_

_“Permission to say something corny?”_

_“This is your one and only chance.”_

_“I don’t want this moment to end.”_

_“Me either.”_

_“I can’t believe you’re leaving.”_

_“Me either.”_

_He nodded. Then leaned forward at the table and put his head in his hands._

_Julie reached across the table and held the hands around his head. For all their time together, she couldn’t remember the last time she held his hands. They were warm and just rough enough to imply a man who did something like playing guitar or building furniture. Julie knew he did none of that. So how did he get his hands that way? She wanted to ask, but decided to leave it as their one and only mystery. She also left it alone because for the first time, in the longest time, she was enjoying the silence._

* * *

_I don't care what consequence it brings_   
_I have been a fool for lesser things._   
_I want you so bad_   
_I think you ought to know_   
_That I intend to hold you for the longest time_


End file.
